Developing Environmental Health Indicators For European Children

Abstract

MAA2-PD-03 Introduction: A Working Group coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the framework of the ENHIS project convened to develop a core set of environmental health indicators enabling assessment of environmental health situation and progress in Europe as well as of the effectiveness of relevant actions. The objective was to develop core indicators focusing on the regional priority goals in the Children's Environmental Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE) as adopted in the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Health and Environment in Budapest, 2004. Methods: The indicators were developed through experts consultation and consensus process to use existing scientific evidence supporting the policy-makers in the Member States. If possible, the indicators were adjusted from previously developed sets in the framework of ECOEHIS project and were harmonized with the Global Initiative in Children's Environmental Health Indicators (CEHI) which was coordinated by another WHO program. A methodology sheet was proposed entailing the justification, the definition, underlying concepts, specification of the data needed, data sources, availability, and quality for each core indicator. Results: Table 1 summarizes the selection process of indicators from the initial proposal of 164 indicators to the final selection of 30 core indicators. In addition, an extended set of 8 indicators was proposed for further development.TABLE 1: Development of Core Indicators From the Initial Proposal to Final SelectionDiscussion and Conclusions: These indicators cover most of the priority topic areas specified in the CEHAPE and will be used to monitor the implementation when European countries report their progress at the intergovernmental meeting in 2007. Acknowledgments: The ENHIS project was supported by EC DG Sanco Grant: SPC 2003112. In addition to all ENHIS project partners, the following experts contributed to proposal and selection of the core indicators. RPG I: Roger Aertgeerts (WHO), David Kay (University of Wales); RPG II: Francesca Racioppi (WHO), Dineshi Sethi (WHO), Matthias Braubach (WHO), Marco Martuzzi (WHO); RPG III: Ferran Ballester (Valencian School of Health Studies), Hanns Moshammer (Medical University of Vienna), Paul Fischer (RIVM), Michal Kryzanowski (WHO); RPG IV: Jenny Pronczuk (WHO), Eva Rheufess (WHO), Celia Rodrigues (WHO), Ivan Ivanov (WHO), Suvi Lehtinen (WHO), Gerald Moy (WHO), Cota Vallenas (WHO).